


Can't Fight Fate

by suomifae



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst, HOOOOBOY THERES ANGST, Reverse Trio AU, i cried a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 19:53:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6534202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suomifae/pseuds/suomifae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny was just your average space nerd with a best friend that was some sort of techno-geek and another that was a half-dead superhero. Things were pretty sweet, even if they had their ups and downs. Too bad Fate has it out for him. You can't fight it, Danny, you can only go along for the ride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Fight Fate

**Author's Note:**

> fckuing fkcku cfk. dont let me touch perfectly good AUs cause apparently i make them sad.

accompanying mix [here](http://8tracks.com/aceinspacee/can-t-fight-fate). 

* * *

 

Danny Fenton was just your average teenage boy, really and truly.

He loved the stars with a passion and could tell you all the constellations by heart and rattle off all kinds of facts about each and every one. Some would call him a nerd, others would say he’s just a little weird, and still others would say he was the best friend anyone could have. He was smart and just a little bit selfish sometimes, but he was always there when you needed him. He had self-esteem issues and he was bullied a lot too. He was oblivious to most things, lost in his world of stars, but he’d always come back down to earth eventually.

Danny Fenton was just your average teenage boy, really and truly.

His friend Sam, on the other hand. Well, she was anything but normal.

She was half-ghost, the result of an invention gone wrong and she became the hero of their home-town.

She was outspoken and passionate about what she believed was right. She was strong and smart and beautiful, all in one package. She was everything you could aspire to be.

Danny and Tucker were proud of her. They were even prouder of being able to fight by her side to protect the city. Danny was the strategist, he laid out the plans and calculated angles, and also provided sarcastic quips under his breath when he was feeling courageous enough. Tucker was the lore keeper and the hacker, he knew everything there was about monsters and ghosts and supernatural artifacts. Being a techno-goth he was savvy with all things dark _and_ all things technological.

Sam was the muscle and the moral compass. The leader that kept them together and spearheaded most of the fights.

They made quite the team.

But then things went very wrong. Very fast.

It was a routine patrol. All three of them were goofing off. Tucker was joking with Danny on the ground patrol and Sam was chuckling along, listening to them chatter over the Fenton Phones that they’d snuck from Danny’s parents last week, as she flew above them over Amity Park.

Sam’s ghost sense should have gone off.

She should have known.

She should have _stopped_ it. She should have been able to _save_ him.

But she didn’t. But she couldn’t.

It started with a sudden scream.

“I’ll get it! I’m closest!” Danny shouted and started running to the source of the noise, his red NASA cap flying off his head as he determinedly clutched his ecto-gun to his chest.

“Danny!” Tucker and Sam yelled after him simultaneously, but he blocked them out. He was closest and he could handle this.

Sam watched him go in horror, his form seemingly tiny from such height and so far away, before zipping after him from the skies. She was fast, but not fast enough.

She could see him already struggling against Spectra, his ecto-gun abandoned on the street several feet away. Sam didn’t know what that absolute _monster_ was doing out and about or why she was attacking Danny directly like this, but Sam knew she had to stop this _immediately_. Danny had always been the one most affected by her powers after all.

A well-aimed blast from Sam was able to dislodge Spectra from Danny, leaving him panting and bruised on the pavement, but at least he was safe. Safer.

Spectra hissed and looked to her new opponent. Her new prey.

“Well, if it isn’t the famous little halfa,” she drawled, reverting over to shadow form to keep out of reach of the ghost girl’s legendary aim. Sam Phantom was ruthless against her enemies should they touch her friends. Spectra had to tread carefully here and she knew it.

“Shut it, you manipulative witch, I’m not letting you touch Danny or anyone else for that matter,” Sam growled at the dark form of the ghost that flitted about, flickering in and out of visibility.

“Good luck with that,” Spectra cooed, “You know you can’t save everyone, Phantom. People are going to get hurt and it’s going to be _all your fault_.”

“Shut up!” Sam shouted and released an ecto-blast in the direction of the ghost’s voice, only to hit the blank brick of a wall and making it smoke from the force. This needed to end, _right now_ , before Spectra got too far into her head.

She looked in the corner of her eye to see Danny was unconscious, but he didn’t look to hurt. He’d probably just passed out from the exhaustion Spectra’s powers could cause. Hopefully.

“You’re a _freak_ , Samantha. Your parents try to smother you and change you because they’re _disgusted_ by you. They can’t stand the sight of what their _precious baby girl_ has become.”

“That’s not _true!_ ” Sam countered vehemently, turning around with watchful eyes, tracking the sound of Spectra’s awful, awful voice. She let lose another blast, to no avail. Where was Tucker when she needed him? He should have met them here by now.

“Nobody likes you, Sam. You’ll have to get used to that, dear. You’re far too stubborn and far too outspoken for _anyone_ to ever love you. Surely, you know that by now?”

Sam saw red, or green more accurately, rage and sorrow encompassing her as she snapped. Spectra finally made a solid appearance, hovering in the street with a smirk. She fired at Spectra blindly, tears on the edge of her eyes as the words finally had their intended affect. Spectra’s grin widened as she dodged quickly, Phantom’s infamous aim hindered by her anger.

The blast didn’t hit Spectra, but it did hit a different target.

Danny.

Spectra was laughing but Sam couldn’t hear anything. Her ears were ringing and she couldn’t breathe. There was whole straight through Danny’s stomach, glowing a faint green from the ectoplasm that had ripped into his intestines. She watched in silent horror as Danny suddenly started coughing up a storm and rolling over to his side, an arm covered in a sick combination of red and green holding onto his middle.

“I told you someone was going to get hurt, Phantom, and look!” Spectra’s voice, suddenly very, very close, echoed smugly in her ears, “It’s _all your fault!”_

“DANNY!”

 Sam’s senses came back to her all at once as she watched her friend cough up blood, splattering the red onto the pavement beside him. She ignored Spectra and the truth she whispered, running to Danny’s side as fast as her trembling legs could take her.

Spectra just smirked and let the girl be, she’d let this fester before coming back to feast on the _delicious_ amount of angst going on.

“ _DANNY!”_

Her hands hovered over him as he let lose another series of pitiful coughs. She cringed as she saw the damage up close. Blood and ectoplasm was everywhere. She could even see his ribcage, his lungs still expanding and contracting eerily, exposed underneath the bone. They were growing weaker with every breath. The rest of him was just as much of a mess but she didn’t dare look down. She was already crying too hard to see properly anyway.

She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, trying to bring him some form of comfort, any kind of comfort. Part of her knew he wouldn’t make it through this (that the wound was far too deep and it was a miracle he was even hanging on as long as he was now) but the larger part of her was in denial.

“Sam…” he wheezed quietly before grunting in pain and closing his eyes.

“Danny, no, hush,” she ran her fingers through his hair as she shushed him, “You- You need to cons-serve your s-strength.”

“Sam,” he said again, a rattling breath shaking his torso as he spoke, “it’s n-not your fault.”

“Like hell it isn’t,” she whispered hotly, fist clenching in the fabric of his ripped up space-patterned shirt. The smell of blood and charred flesh was starting to become overwhelming.

“It’s not,” Danny insisted, a shaking hand coming up to cover Sam’s. “You’re a _hero_ , Sam.”

“You are too, Danny,” Sam replied, her voice thick with tears at this point, “You’re a hero, _too_.”

She wanted to make sure he knew that before- before he left. She needed to make sure he understood that he was always just as important as everyone else, even her. Especially her. He’d always been so much more willing to jump head-first into a fight to save someone and she knew, despite this, that he doubted himself too often. He saw himself as nothing special. But he and Tucker had always been an integral part to their team. She’d be nothing without them. And she needed to make sure he _knew_ that.

“You. Are. A. Hero. Danny,” Sam whispered with force as she watched his breathing slow and heart his heartbeat stutter. “Never forget that.”

His lips twitched up and he gave her an approximation of his trademark smirk, “I know.”

After that he stopped responding.

It would be moments later that Tucker would find them, panting heavily as he trudged up beside Sam. He fell to his knees at the sight, his best friend crying heavily over the unresponsive and bloody body of his other best friend. He curled up and sat there in shock as Sam continued to sob to the point of hyperventilation. She eventually stopped and switched back to her human form, too weak from emotional turmoil to keep up her ghost form.

It would only be a few more second before paramedics and police would show up to the scene. Too little too late.

Danny Fenton had fulfilled his destiny.

One way or another, he was always meant to die.


End file.
